That included police shortening the time taken to hand over people seeking mental health assessments at emergency departments (EDs) and mental health services completing comprehensive risk assessments before involving police in transportation.
Health NZ Te Whatu Ora’s director of specialist mental health and addiction Karla Bergquist said Whanganui would be included in “later tranches”.
Phase two changes mean police will hand over people detained for a mental health assessment and taken to EDs to health staff and leave within 60 minutes, unless there is an immediate risk to life or safety.
Mental health assessments where no criminality is involved will not be held in police custody rooms.
Whanganui police will soon spend no more than 60 minutes with people needing mental health assessments at ED. Photo / Eva de Jong
The Whanganui district was planning for the rollout and would only “go live” for phase two once it had been endorsed by a governance group, Bergquist said.
“We want to reiterate that our focus is on ensuring people receive the right care at the right time while maintaining staff safety and the integrity of our services.”
Health NZ Te Whatu Ora did not respond to questions about whether Whanganui Hospital’s mental health crisis team would be expanded or if the team would be required to attend more callouts.
Te Huia said Balance and iwi-led mental health and addiction service Te Oranganui were applying for a Health NZ contract to run an after-hours crisis recovery cafe in Whanganui, which would be “a game-changer for people”.
“It will be somewhere safe and warm to go when someone is feeling distressed, rather than getting to the point where police are called or they’re dropped at ED,” she said.
“A police cell or ED are not places you want to be when you’re distressed. It’s not conducive to wellbeing.”
Research showed that nationally half a million hours of police time a year were spent servicing events with a mental health component, Johnson said.
Mist (Mental Illness Survivors Team) manager Renee Kaponga said any gaps in the system needed to be addressed collaboratively.
She said after-hours services and accessibility were key.
“A lot of community services are Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, but mental health doesn’t discriminate or have a time.”
Hāpai Mauri Tangata, a partnership between police and Te Oranganui to respond to mental health-related callouts, was an example of how collaboration had been positive for Whanganui, Kaponga said.
“If you look at other regions, a crisis recovery cafe has been operating in Palmerston North for several years.”
Te Huia said Balance had set up a “koha cafe” which operated on Saturdays and the crisis recovery cafe would be an extension of that.
“Last Saturday, we had 73 people come through, and they were people who wouldn’t normally engage with a mental health service,” Te Huia said.
“Ideally, the koha cafe will be from 4-6.30pm, then the crisis cafe can stay open until 10pm from Thursday to Sunday.”
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.